Looking at hospital services

We want to future-proof local hospital services and are committed to having a general hospital in every town and city. An independent piece of work looking at hospital services will consider how we can do this, identifying which services would benefit from being providing in different ways.

It is just one part of the overall approach. At the same time, we are continuing our work on developing more and more ways of treating and caring for people in their homes and local clinics, so that they don’t need to go to hospital.

Some examples of this include:

Helping people get the right treatment with 'front door' services in Doncaster

Extended hours in GP practices in Barnsley

Consultant Connect in Bassetlaw (where GPs dial a single number to immediately reach the right specialist)

New urgent and emergency care centre in Rotherham

Direct booking out of hours appointments booked into four hubs in Sheffield

The work will look at how services could be provided so that everyone in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw has equal access to high quality, safe hospital services now and into the future.

Staff and citizen engagement

Patient, public, clinicians and staff are invited to get involved. In the first instance this is via an online and paper-based survey. Please contribute to the survey here: http://bit.ly/SYBsurvey or request a paper copy by calling 0114 305 4487 or emailing helloworkingtogether@nhs.net.

A public event is also being held on 6th December at The Source, Meadowhall. In addition, opportunities to have conversations with local people in each of the towns and city in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw are being set up and will be publicised on this website. If you would like to express an interest in attending the event please contact acs.engagement@nhs.net

Fact finding and citizen involvement

We have already started to engage with members of the public and asked which of the criteria being used to determine which services are reviewed are most important to them. This was so we could include their opinions in the selection process. You can read a report of the engagement so far in the documents below.

Concluding the work

When the independent work finishes in April 2018 it is anticipated there will be a series of recommendations about what changes could be made to future-proof the services. If those recommendations are accepted full public consultation would take place.

All the hospitals that provide acute medical and surgical services in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw are included in the review. Also included are hospitals that have networked services and close links.

Mental health hospitals are not included. This is because mental health is a separate workstream within Health and Care Working Together with experts from across health and care working on how we can improve care and services.

The hospitals included are:

Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust*

The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust

Sheffield Children's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

* Mid Yorkshire Hospitals are included because there are some patients who live in Wakefield who access South Yorkshire hospitals and vice versa. The hospital is within a different NHS region which is also looking at how it can improve services by working differently. Some of the services which the review will be looking at have already been consulted on in Mid Yorkshire and we will not be making any recommendations that would change services already agreed.

We are asking for your views to inform an independent review of hospital services in South Yorkshire, Bassetlaw and North Derbyshire.

The review is looking into five of our regions’ services – gastroenterology (for stomach or intestine conditions), urgent and emergency care, maternity services, stroke services (early supported discharge and rehabilitation) and services for children who are particularly ill.

We want to improve these services so that everyone in the region has access to high-quality, safe care – now and in the future.

We are not closing any local hospitals. We want you to help us future-proof local services.